The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released a site location and exterior rendering for the Fairbanks Alaska Temple, which will be the second house of the Lord in that state.
Planned as a single-story, 10,000-square-foot structure, the temple will be built on a 7.59-acre site along Geist Road in Fairbanks, Alaska, on the south side of the road between Highway 3 and Thompson Drive. A nearby meetinghouse and ancillary building are also planned for the site.
The site and rendering were released Monday, Nov. 25, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Every effort is made to construct temples in an expeditious manner. At times, various reasons may delay a temple’s completion and dedication.
Church President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Fairbanks on Oct. 1, 2023, one of 20 new temple locations he identified during the October 2023 general conference.
The Church and temples in Alaska
Alaska is home to nearly 34,000 Latter-day Saints comprising more than 80 congregations.
The state’s first house of the Lord — the Anchorage Alaska Temple — was dedicated in 1999. It continues in operation while a new temple structure is being constructed nearby on the temple grounds. Anchorage is located 360 miles south of Fairbanks, making for a drive of at least six hours between the two cities.
With the Anchorage temple being the Church’s northernmost house of the Lord worldwide, that distinction will go to the Fairbanks temple.
The first known visit by Church members to Alaska occurred in July 1895 when President Wilford Woodruff and his counselors, Presidents George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith, and their families toured Juneau and the southern portion of Alaska via steamship.
Alaska’s 1898 gold rush brought the first Latter-day Saints to the area, including 79-year-old convert Dr. Edward G. Cannon, whose early attempts to establish the Church in Alaska including maintaining a moveable “tabernacle” that he transported from settlement to settlement.
Missionaries briefly worked in Juneau in 1913, with Alaska’s first congregation — a branch of three families in Fairbanks — organized in July 1938, 21 years before Alaska gained its statehood.
By 1961, the Church counted some 3,050 members in the state, with three branches in Anchorage and others in Fairbanks, Palmer and Juneau. The state’s first stake — the Alaska Stake — was organized in Anchorage on Aug. 13, 1961.
